


Dissolve Me

by skinonbones



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Mumblecore, Recreational Drug Use, Slice of Life, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-01
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2017-12-22 02:21:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/907739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skinonbones/pseuds/skinonbones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren, Mikasa, and Armin move to a new school right before their senior year. </p><p>As the year goes by, Eren finds himself growing closer to Levi, a sullen recluse whose on-and-off girlfriend, Hanji, never seems to be around. Meanwhile, Armin and Mikasa attempt to successfully navigate their final year of high school. This is a story about relationships, romantic or otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. introductions

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This chapter is mostly a test for the voices of and interactions between the characters (you can probably skip it when the next chapters are posted). Hope you like!

**(A Prologue of Sorts)**

“What kind of school mascot is the 'Hungry Giant?’” Eren squinted at the paper in his hands. “It looks exactly like Mel Gibson.”

Summer was waning. They were sprawled on the floor of Armin’s bedroom, homemade Kool-Aid popsicles dripping sticky pools into the red Solo cups that held them.

“Sounds like a restaurant,” Mikasa said.

“Like, the woodsy log cabin kind with animal heads mounted on the walls,” Armin said. “Give me my registration forms; they’re important.”

Eren scowled and handed them over. The sunlight filtered in through Armin’s shitty, half-broken blinds, forming long, skinny rectangles of light on the floorboards, over their bodies, landing in a way that made Eren feel suddenly self-conscious of how hairy his legs were compared to Armin’s.

He pushed Mikasa’s head off of his stomach to sit up. She landed with an ominous _thump_ but didn’t say anything, so he figured it was okay.

“Gross, my stomach’s still warm where your head was,” Armin said mildly.

 “This is bullshit,” Eren said. “Who transfers to a new high school right before senior year.”

 "Us,” said Mikasa.”

 “That’s the thing, I could get used to it if our old school were fucking swallowed by a sinkhole, but this is _bullshit_!” Eren’s voice was slowly rising in pitch.

 “At least there’s In-N-Out here,” Armin said.

 “You and your fuckin’ In-N-Out―"

 “Which is pretty sweet,” Armin said. “FYI.”

 “I don’t care.” Eren was getting huffy. Mikasa wondered if he would let her wax his eyebrows. “I want to go home.”

 “Dude,” Armin said. “Texas sucked ass.”

 “Hot,” Mikasa added. “Too humid. Only Asian in a 30-mile radius.”

 “They called me a dyke, like, every day” Armin said.

"I know, " Eren groaned. "I fucking know, you guys can stop reminding me now."

 The door slammed open. Armin’s grandpa peered down at them.

 “Your dad called,” he said cordially to Mikasa. “He wants to know if you’re staying for dinner.”

 He stared at Eren.

“Put a shirt on, you little sociopath,” he said.

“We’ll stay, thank you,” Mikasa said. “Do you need any help?”

“Just wake me up when the pizza comes,” he said, then closed the door and left.

Mikasa’s hand closed over Eren’s.

 “We were only there for two years,” she said.

 “Yeah,” he said, “But this is senior year. We’re supposed to be cool by now.”

“Eren,” Armin interjected, “You weren’t going to be cool anyway.”

 “Armin,” Eren said. “Keep your whore mouth shut.” He slumped dramatically back on the floor. “I just hope we don’t have to _talk_ to people.”

 Mikasa hauled herself up from the ground.

 “I’m bored,” she said. “Let’s go outside.”

* * *

The sun was setting and a whisper of a breeze rustled the leaves of the trees lining the road.

“Ahh,” Armin sighed, closing his eyes. “Life outside the Internet.”

 Eren snorted with laughter, then sneezed a hunk of milkshake into a nearby leaf.

 "What the fuck,” Mikasa said.

 The city they had moved to was a quiet suburb; the kind of place that felt like it existed in a bubble, vaguely separate from everywhere else. Cars didn’t honk. Men and women steadfastly battling the approach to middle-age jogged in the biking lanes, nodding hello to each other, pleasant but reserved.

Armin squinted against the heat shimmer rising from the asphalt, suspicious of the city and its promise of a fresh beginning. It was hard to believe that the data from his and Eren's and Mikasa's lives could be transcribed and translated so neatly; that now, halfway across the country, they were doing the same things and eating the same junk food that was in Texas when their lives now had the potential to become entirely different. Armin shoved his hands in his pockets.

Then someone careened by on a moped and crashed directly into a wall.

“Oh my God, did you just see that?” Eren asked.

 “I think so, “ Armin said. “But we could be having a group hallucination.”

 “Oh my God," Eren said. "We need to help that guy."

 Nobody moved.

 “Like, for real,” he said.

They rushed across the street, Eren with a manically determined glint in his eyes, Mikasa right at his heels, and Armin lagging a little behind, worried about being nabbed by the police for jaywalking. Eren skidded to a halt leaning over the moped, which was smoking a bit, and addressed the prone body sprawled across the grass.

"Hey," Eren said. "Are you okay?"

“Leave me here to die,” she said and rolled onto her stomach.

Moped turned out to be a bleary-eyed woman who smelled like week-old garbage. Her taped-up glasses lay on the ground next to her head. One leg had broken off and wedged itself in a crack in the sidewalk.

 Armin kneeled by her head, inspecting it for damage. “Do you think you have a concussion?”

 “Armin, what kind of question is that,” Mikasa said.

 “No, I don’t have a concussion,” said Moped. “Trust me, I would know.”

 “You’re lucky you landed on the grass,” Armin said.

 “You sound pretty chipper for someone who clearly doesn’t have their shit together,” Eren said, looking concerned but inappropriately eager. “Listen, do you want me to call the cops or not?”

 “Leave me alone, I’m wearing a helmet,” she groaned.

 “Are you high?” Armin asked. “You have a pretty big grass burn on your shoulder,” he added.

 “No."

 “We’re trying to help you,” Eren snapped. “What are we supposed to do now?”

“Leave me alone,” she answered promptly. After a second, she added, “Actually, could you call this number for me? I have one hell of a headache,” and lifted her hand. A phone number was scrawled across the palm. “Use my phone.”

After two rings, a testy male voice answered.

“Hanji, if you’re calling for me to dig you out of some shit again, I swear to God, I’m going to kick your ass.”

“Hi,” Eren said. “I’m sorry.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m Eren...”

 Armin said, “What are you doing? Tell him what’s wrong before he hangs up on you!”

 Mikasa snatched the phone away and said, “What are you wearing?”

 “Gucci, pilfered from a dead body. Who the _fuck_ are you guys?”

 Armin took the phone from Mikasa.

 “Sorry,” Armin said, glaring at the other two. “We’re with your friend right now. She just crashed her moped into a building. I think she needs your help.”

 “Shit,” he sighed. “Where are you?”

 “Uh... We’re next to a restaurant called Thai Me Up.”

 “Give me 10 minutes. Tell Hanji her ass is grass.”

 “Okay.”

 Armin handed Hanji her phone.

 “Hanji,” he said. “Your ass is grass.”

 “That’s what I thought,” she said.

 “Are you ever gonna get up?”

 “No thanks, I’ll sit this one out.”

 “Right,” he said. “What happened?”

 “I’m on vacation.” Hanji rolled onto her back and spread her limbs on the ground like she was making a snow angel. “The clouds are beautiful right now.”

 Armin peered up at the sky.

“Yeah. Is it always this...”

“Smoggy?” Hanji suggested.

“Pink,” Armin said. “It’s really pink here. We all just moved here like two weeks ago.”

“It’s been two weeks and you haven’t seen the sunset yet?” Hanji asked. “You're missing out. Lie down.”

Armin looked around. Eren and Mikasa shrugged at him and walked away to sit on the curb nearby; no one else was around. Gingerly, he sat next to Hanji. The cement was still hot from the sun and burned the backs of his knees.

“Get on the grass,” Hanji said, “It’s nicer here.”

“This is really weird,” he said. “I don’t tend to like, make friends. Or talk to strangers.”

“Does this mean we’re friends?” she asked. “Is this legal? I’m way too old for you.”

“I think that only applies if we’re having sex,” Armin said.

“I know, I’m just fucking with you. Come on, lie down. It’s nice.”

Armin lowered his back onto the ground, folding his arms over his stomach.

“If my hair gets stuck in sidewalk gum, please just cut it off,” he said.

“Shh. Look at the clouds," she said. "That one looks like a winged cat.”

Armin pointed up at the sky. “Smiley face.”

Hanji squinted. “Looks more like a giant mouth. The little cloud specks around it are people. Look. Narwhal with legs.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just call it a unicorn?”

“It’s too lumpy to be a unicorn.”

“You’re better at this than I am,” Armin said.

“You can’t be bad at cloud-hunting,” she replied. “It’s what you make of it.”

“You sound like an English teacher," he said. “'You can’t be wrong about your perspective,'” he said, making air-quotes even though Hanji wasn't looking at him.

“Exactly,” she said, sighing contentedly.

“Hanji,” he said. “Why do you smell like a dump.”

“Science,” she said.

They lay there quietly for several minutes, listening to the birds chirping and tires crunching over asphalt.

“Don’t fall asleep,” Armin said. “I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to sleep if you have serious head trauma.”

“If I did you would know, trust me.”

At that moment, a black Mini Cooper swerved violently into the parking lot, completely disregarding the available parking spaces, and a man stumbled out of the driver’s seat. He caught himself, then strode purposefully toward the wreck.

“What are you shitheads doing?” he yelled.

Armin looked in the direction of the voice.

“Is that...?”

“Yes, it’s him,” Hanji said. “Levi, meet my friend, um...”

“Armin.”

Levi looked like a vampire. Despite the heat, he was dressed in a black v-neck sweater and jeans. He looked like he hadn’t seen the light of day in at least a few months and had a bad case of computer glow. Armin noted that they were around the same height, though Levi was thicker, more muscular.

He was also fuming.

“You little shit,” he growled. He looked rabid. “How’s your head? Are you hurt?”

“No,” Hanji sighed. “But I can’t feel my legs.”

Levi’s eyes were practically bulging out of his head.

“Did you—are you fucking kidding me?”

“Yeah,” Hanji said. “Can you take my moped home? Please?”

“I’m taking you home too, shitstain,” he said. “I’ll take your shift.”

“Lie down, Levi,” she said. “It’s a really nice day.”

“Fuck no,” he said. “That’s so unsanitary. I can’t believe you talked him into it.”

He turned to Armin and squinted at him. Armin squirmed under his gaze.

“You kids can go now,” he said.

“Don’t be rude, Levi, they’re nice” Hanji said. She groped her way into a sitting position and adjusted her glasses on her face. “We should give them some coffee. Help me up.”

Levi roughly hoisted her to her feet. They made a strange pair. Hanji was tall and slim and tan, with strong features and a blinding smile, while Levi’s face had by that point morphed into the half-bored, half-horrified look of someone who was perpetually, miserably confronted with stupidity.

“Are you okay?” Armin asked hesitantly. “You look kinda sad.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Levi said.

“That’s just his face.” Hanji rubbed Levi’s shoulder comfortingly. “Get your friends! I’ll make you guys frappes. Iced coffee! Whatever you want.”

Armin trudged over to Eren and Mikasa. They were playing a game of hacky sack in front of the parking lot.

"Hey," Armin said. "I can't believe you guys are playing without me."

Eren half-turned to him with an apologetic look just as Mikasa kicked the hacky sack.

"Shit!" Armin said, right before it hit Eren with a loud smack just above his ear. He collapsed to the ground and Mikasa gasped, looking horrified.

"Oh my God," she said. "Are you okay? I'm so, so sorry."

"Fuck," Eren groaned.

"Uh," Armin said. "Hanji wants to make us coffee. Mikasa, help me hoist him up."

Mikasa bent down and slung Eren over her shoulder like a backpack.

"Okay," Armin said. He led them back to where Hanji and Levi were waiting. Levi eyed Mikasa warily.

"What the fuck happened?" Levi asked.

Armin shrugged.

* * *

Hanji led them to a little café wedged between an insurance building and an antique store.

“This place is called The Little Café. We’re technically not open for another hour, but we can make an exception today.” She beamed. Levi scowled.

Origami cranes dangled from the ceiling, amongst the twinkle lights draped across the exposed beams. Carved wooden animals peeped out of the corners and between the thick leaves of the potted cacti on the café tables.  

“It’s called ‘The Little Café?’” Armin asked.

“Yeah, it’s called ‘The Little Café,’ Legout,” Levi said, glaring. “Problem?”

“You work here?” Mikasa looked dubious. It was hard to imagine someone so truculent spending time in such a cute place, making foam hearts on people’s lattes.

“We’re watching it for a friend,” Hanji said. “So for the time being, we both work here. What do you guys want to drink?”

“Just coffee, please,” Mikasa said.

“Me too.”

Eren looked at the menu tacked on the wall.

“Do you make green tea frappes?”

“Don’t be a bitch, Eren,” Mikasa said.

“Right,” he said, “Coffee, please.”

“We don't always open this late,” Hanji called over the counter over the loud burble of the brewing coffee, “Most of the business comes from the local high school, so as soon as school starts, we start opening at around noon, when we usually get waves of ditchers. Sometimes people come to do their homework. You guys should drop by!”

Levi let out a long, loud sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Hanji,” he said, “What are we going to do about your bike?”

“I’ll fix it at my house,” she said.

“How did you even crash it in the first place?” Eren asked.

“Let me guess. Hanji doesn’t sleep,” Levi said, “Because she is a scientist. She probably crashed into a wall today because she was too busy thinking about fucking fruit flies.”

“Not ‘ _fucking_ fruit flies’,” she corrected quickly. “Just fruit flies. No fucking.”

“Are you two dating?” Mikasa asked.

“That’s a pretty invasive question from someone whose name I don’t even know,” he said. “I guess you’re on a roll, Miss What-Are-You-Wearing.”

Mikasa shrugged, unperturbed.

“For the record, we are kind of, but not really, very loosely dating,” Hanji said. Armin noticed Levi’s face sour for a moment before realigning itself.

“Right, we forgot to introduce ourselves,” Armin said hastily. “I’m Armin, and this is Mikasa and Eren.”

“Nice to meet you,” Hanji said.

Levi just nodded sourly.

"Well, aren't you a sulky fuck!" she cooed, pinching Levi's cheeks. Levi hissed at her, like a cat.

"Wow," Eren said. "You guys are fucking weird."

Armin cringed.

"Yeah," Hanji agreed. "We get that sometimes."


	2. one month in (homecoming)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (For those of you who commented on the first chapter, I'm sorry but this chapter is a lot moodier and probably not funny but at least the story is starting!)

 

 

_  
i. Eren_

Eren trudged across the street, scowling. The truck next to him honked impatiently; he ignored it, and, upon reaching the café, slammed the door open and stomped inside.

“Do that again and I’ll have your balls,” Levi said. He didn’t even look up from his crossword puzzle. “The usual?”

“Please,” Eren mumbled.

“Where are your friends?” Levi asked.

“Detention. They set a fire in the chemistry room.”

Levi shook his head indulgently.

“Kids.”

The cafe was emptier than usual. Levi was sitting at one of the tables, his legs crossed neatly, a tiny, empty espresso cup placed before him. His pale face stood out from the shadows of the dimly lit room. A blade of green light from the handmade stained-glass window slashed across his cheekbones, deepening the dark hollows underneath his eyes. Eren noticed distantly that he looked worn-out, like a shirt that had been bleached too many times.

Levi eyed him with affectionate distaste.

“You look like a truck,” he said, “Jesus, have you ever heard of matching colors?”

Eren’s ears turned an alarming shade of red.

“Where’s Hanji? I need help on my math homework.”

“Oh, so that’s how it is,” Levi said. “You come in here, you drink my coffee, you don’t even have the courtesy to say hello, and you kick me to the curb.”

“God, _sorry_ ,” Eren said sullenly, “I’m gonna fail math.”

Levi folded his hands underneath his chin.

“Have a seat,” he said.

Eren gracelessly plopped into the chair across from Levi.

“Does that mean she’s here?” he asked, “Or are you just planning on fucking with me.”

“Why can’t it be both?” Levi cleared his throat. “Actually, she’s not in.”

“Oh, fucking great,” Eren grumbled.

“Look, you little ingrate,” Levi snapped, “I’m trying to be nice to you. I’m going to make you your stupid drink, and then we’ll have a long chat about your problems, okay?”

Eren muttered incoherently to himself.

“What?” Levi’s eyes flashed dangerously.

“Okay,” Eren mumbled.

He watched Levi preparing his drink. Something about the way Levi moved made Eren think that he had a limp; he made a mental note to ask Armin about it later.

“So where _is_ Hanji?” he asked for lack of anything better to say.

“I don’t fucking know,” Levi said, “Drop it, okay?”

Eren frowned.

“Like, you don’t know as in she might be at Wal-Mart or...”

“I told you to drop it, asshole.” Levi turned to face him. “I haven’t heard from her in a few days, so she’s probably doing something _more important_. I don’t have a single clue where she is. She _could_ be at Wal-Mart or she _could_ be trapped in a Port-A-Potty in front of the Eiffel Tower for all I fucking know.”

“Oh.” Eren fumbled for something to say.

“Shut it,” Levi said, “Or more dumb shit is going to fall out of your mouth.”

Levi set the drink in front of Eren.

“Is that a macaroni noodle dried onto your shirt?” he asked grudgingly.

Eren looked down.

“Oh. Yeah,” he said, “I had Easy Mac for lunch.”

Levi’s lip curled in disgust.

“You’re a nightmare,” he said, “You have about the mental capacity of a 5-year-old. You dress like a 5-year-old. You eat Easy Mac. You’re practically in kindergarten.”

“Yeah, well you’re a bitch,” Eren blurted out. He could feel himself flushing from the base of his neck to the tips of his ears.

Levi scowled.

“God, I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings,” Eren muttered.

“Whatever,” Levi said.

“Are you _mad_ at me? You just took a dump on me, you not allowed to be mad anymore.”

Levi sank back in his chair and rubbed his hand over his eyes.

“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that,” he said.

Eren had a brief, tempting mental image of himself slapping Levi’s dumb, sneering face. He cracked his knuckles underneath the table and gnawed on his lower lip.

“Did you choose this seat on purpose because it makes you look good?” he asked. He tried to sound snide and hated himself for the petulant note in his voice.

“No,” Levi said. His voice was muffled behind his hand. “Tell me I’m pretty again.”

“What—“

“Get out your math homework, you little shit,” Levi said. “Unless you want to talk about your delicate 5-year-old feelings first. Unlike you, I passed high school math.”

“How old are you, anyway?” Eren asked. It was hard to tell with Levi; he had the piss-poor attitude of a teenager.

“Older than you,” he answered.

Eren rested his head on the table and traced the wood grain with his eyes.

“How come you never talk about yourself?”

“How come _you_ never shut up about yourself?”

“And then you respond by being rude and shitty.”

“Leave me alone, kid,” Levi said. He sounded suddenly tired. “I’ll tell you this, I’m better at math than Hanji. I have to do all of her calculations for her.”

“Oh.” Eren sulked quietly for a few moments. “Maybe I don’t want you to help me because you’re an asshole,” he muttered.

“What do you _want_ from me?” asked Levi angrily. “I’ve always been an asshole; that’s never stopped you from following me around.”

“ _I_ don’t fucking know!” Eren snapped.

He stared out the stained-glass window moodily.

The day they had made it, he, Levi, and Mikasa had splashed around in a kiddy pool in the vacant lot behind the café while Armin and Hanji had bent over a set of instructions they had found on the Internet, discussing the science behind colored glass. Levi wouldn’t take his shirt off and he and Mikasa had sat as far away from Eren as they could, pointedly ignoring both Eren and each other. Eren remembered with surprisingly clarity Levi’s fingers holding a cigarette, the knobby knuckles and neatly cut and filed nails and the knotted scar next to his right wrist. He remembered Levi noncommittally kicking water into his face, then pounding his back with Mikasa when he accidentally swallowed it.

“Don’t be mad,” Eren grumbled. “I’m sorry.”

“Whatever,” Levi said. He gave Eren a hard, appraising look. “Don’t fucking apologize unless you know what you’re sorry for.”

Eren opened his mouth to argue, then realized Levi was right—he didn’t know what he was apologizing for.

“What about me makes you so uncomfortable?” Levi asked, studying the nails of his right hand.

“I don’t know.”

“Try again.”

Eren squirmed in his seat.

“It feels like you’re trying!” Eren said. “Right now, at least.”

“Good. I am,” Levi replied. “What else?”

“You’re weird,” Eren said hesitantly. “You don’t talk about yourself and you’re a real dick, but you still talk to me. We hang out so much we should be friends but I don’t know anything about you—not even your last name. It’s like you’re hiding something and you want to be liked but don’t want to like anyone back.” Eren paused. “Which is kind of shitty of you.”

Levi listened to it all with an inscrutable look on his face, his eyes never moving from Eren’s. The lighting at his seat cast long shadows from his brow over his cheeks; it made his face look almost skeletal. His pale blue eyes gleamed as if from empty sockets above his sharp cheekbones. Eren fixed his eyes on his own fingers, avoiding Levi’s gaze. He swallowed nervously.

They were silent for a while.

“So…” Eren said. “Are you…”

“We’ll talk later,” Levi said. He stood abruptly. “Go home. I’m closing up.”

“Are you allowed to do that?” Eren asked. “It’s like, 4 p.m.”

“I can do whatever the fuck I want,” Levi said. “I’m only here for Hanji anyway—I don’t care about this stupid café.”

You spend a lot of time here for someone who doesn’t care, Eren thought.

“Okay,” he said. “Bye.”

Levi ignored him.

As Eren walked out of the building, he noticed that the air had a bit of a bite to it. It smelled like autumn.

 

* * *

 

 

 

_ii. Levi_

He made his way slowly up the steps to his apartment. The elevator wasn’t working and he felt like walking anyway—after he had closed the café, he had wandered through the city; made his way past the buildings and onto the dirt hiking trails, to the top of the hills, so he could stare down at the cars passing by, their headlights smaller and dimmer than the flame at the tip of his cigarette. It had been dark by the time he had gotten back to the parking lot where he had left his car.

He missed Hanji with a constant, throbbing ache. He hated her, he thought. He wouldn’t speak to her when, or if, she came back; if she needed his help again he would just walk away. He could leave before she had another chance to come back and disappear again.

The light was already on in his apartment. He stood still in front of the door for a long moment before he unlocked it and stepped inside.

“Honey, I’m home,” he called.

Something clattered to the ground.

“Oh, shit,” he heard Hanji say. “Fuck.”

He stripped off his jacket and shoes by the doorway. Hanji stepped out of the kitchen, dressed in his boxers and an unbuttoned flannel shirt. Her feet were bare. The toenails were painted bright orange.

“Are we getting domestic now?” Hanji asked. She slipped her hand to the back of his neck and gently kneaded the knotted muscles there. “Does this mean we’re only gonna have sex on holidays?”

Levi felt his stomach twist a little.

“How long have you been here?” he asked.

“A while,” Hanji said. “I came in at around noon. I ate some of your leftovers, by the way; I hope you weren't too attached."

“Where were you?” His voice was flat. He wanted to step away from her, go to bed and pretend she wasn’t there. He forced himself to stand still.

“Lots of places,” Hanji said. “I took a road trip to Nevada. The desert was beautiful. You’d love it.”

If you thought that, Levi thought, you could have taken me with you.

“Are you mad at me?” Hanji asked quietly.

Levi abruptly recalled Eren’s face as he had asked the same question, the sullen set to his mouth and the nervous look in his too-big, too-blue eyes. Hanji didn’t look nervous at all, just curious. He fought down the blinding rage that rose up from the pit of his stomach to pound in his head and his limbs.

“No,” he said. “Have you been drinking? You smell like beer.”

“Not much.” She sounded chipper. “I had a can.”

Levi smiled at her and felt his chest tighten when he saw Hanji’s grin falter.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“What?” he replied, “I’m smiling. Ever since when has that meant that something’s wrong?”

She gently tugged at the corners of his eyes.

“Your eyes,” she said. “You gotta smize.”

He jerked out of her touch.

“I’m gonna take a shower,” he said. “Are you going to be here when I’m out?”

Hanji watched him, looking remote.

“Yeah,” she said. “Where else would I be?”

* * *

“It is the year of our Lord 2013 and you still buy CDs,” Hanji said, smiling.

Levi stood behind her in the den of his apartment, towel in hand. She was sitting on the ground, holding several records between her knees. Her shirt had fallen open. Levi concentrated on the bony curve of her clavicle, the dip between her breasts, the plane of her stomach between the ridges of her ribs.

“We can’t all be thieves,” he said dryly.

Hanji laughed.

Levi sat behind her and ran his hands through her hair. It was soft and untangled for once.

“I haven’t seen this one before,” she said. “Is it any good?”

He looked over her shoulder.

“That’s Passion Pit,” he said. “How.”

She turned her head to waggle her eyebrows and give him a shit-eating grin.

“We could get ‘ _passionate’_ in this ‘ _pit’_ ,” she said.

“Oh, fuck you,” Levi groaned. “Fuck, I can’t believe you just said that.”

Hanji was giggling uncontrollably. She fell backwards into him as she hooted with laughter. Levi tried not to smile and half-heartedly shoved her away. She fell anyway and landed on her side next to him, still laughing.

“Fuck you, Hanji,” Levi said. “That was not funny.” She ignored him.

“God, that was good,” Hanji gasped. She wiped a tear from her eye.

Levi placed his hand on the curve of her hip and pulled her closer. She wiggled into his touch and enthusiastically slipped her hands under his shirt.

“Aw yeah, abs,” she said. “I can’t believe a geek like you has these.”

“I do crunches in front of the computer,” he admitted.

“I love it,” she said. She pushed him onto his back and straddled his hips. “I love your nerdy abs.”

She never said “I love you;” he’d never heard her say it to anyone in all the years he had known her.

“I missed you,” he said.

She pulled her shirt off and leaned over him brush her lips up his jaw.

“Hey," she said. "Let’s fuck."

Levi lay still for a second, then busied himself with unbuttoning his pants, pushing Hanji’s boxers down from her hips.

Afterwards, he watched her draw equations on his skin. She let him smoke and smiled brilliantly at him when he corrected her math.

 

* * *

 

 

 

_iii. Annie_

The new kid looked like he was about to puke.

She turned away to hide her smirk right as Bertholdt retched out a disgusting, gloopy mix of marshmallow and bile.

Reiner bellowed with laughter and smacked Bertholdt on the back as he groaned and held his stomach.

The new kid was starting to turn a little green.

“Fuck,” he said feebly. He spit out a mouthful of thick white mush. “I can’t do this.”

Reiner gurgled in response. The new girl looked him in the eye and shoved another marshmallow into her mouth.

“Chubby bunny,” she mumbled.

Bert was still gagging on the ground.

“Shit,” he moaned between coughs. “Annie, help. Water. Please.”

She opened the last bottle and deliberately took a long sip.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” she asked.

“ _Please_ , Annie,” he groaned. “I’ll be your bitch. I’m so your bitch. I’ll do anything for you.”

“Like what?”

She watched the new boy out of the corner of her eye. He had rolled onto his stomach, cradling his head in his arms.

“Like _anything_ ,” Bert gasped. “I’m gonna _die_.”

She tossed the bottle at him.

“No more Hawaiian shirts,” she said. “And no more letting Reiner dye your leg hair.”

“ _Thank you._ ”

She watched the water pour all over his face and eyed the bright pink patch of hair in his left armpit with distaste. Reiner streaked by, presumably to vomit in the bushes. The new girl hurked almost politely and spit her marshmallows into a paper bag the boy handed to her.

They were all stripped down to their underwear, except for him.

“What’s your name?” she asked abruptly.

He turned to her, looking startled.

“Me?”

“Yeah.”

“Armin,” he said. “She’s Mikasa.”

She considered saying ‘I didn’t ask.’ Instead she just nodded.

He was pretty. His hair was a shade darker than hers, and his eyes were wider and bluer. He was a little taller and a little more slender in proportion, and his nose was a cute little knob in his doll-like face. Unlike Reiner and Bertholdt, his cheeks were still baby-smooth. His shoulders were narrow and his hips were wide for a boy’s.

“Not going to strip?” she asked.

He looked away.

“No,” he said. “I’m good.”

“Why?” She blew a stream of smoke into the crisp night air. “Are you hiding something?”

“No.”

He was a shitty liar, she thought. He wiped his palms on his jeans and looked at the ground.

“Okay,” she said.

She noticed that his eyes nervously skittered over her body and quickly looked away. He was probably a nice boy; polite and patient and quiet, unlike Reiner.

“Can you keep a secret?” she asked. She exhaled another puff of smoke.

“Um,” he said. “Yeah. I think so.”

“You could use some lessons in lying,” she said.

He frowned.

“I don’t see how that’s a secret,” he said.

“That’s because it isn’t one,” she explained patiently, looking down at him from her seat on the hood of the car. He was sitting cross-legged on the ground, tugging at the grass absentmindedly.

“Then what’s the secret?” he asked.

“I never said I was going to tell you anything,” she said. “It was just a question.”

To her surprise, he smiled at that.

“You’re right,” he said. “I didn’t think about that.”

He jumped a little bit at the loud explosion behind him.

“Sorry,” Reiner yelled. “I didn’t expect it to go off that fast.”

Bert snorted.

Armin was looking at his phone again.

“If your friend didn’t answer the first thirty times you called, he’s not going to pick up now,” Annie said.

Armin just shrugged.

“Do you ever wonder…” he said. Annie braced herself for something sentimental. “Do you ever wonder why that grocery store we went to would stock fireworks next to baby food? Of all things. Baby food.”

Annie smiled at that.

“If you felt so guilty about your friend not being here, why did you agree to come?”

Armin didn’t reply.

“Come up here,” she said.

He hesitated at first, but climbed up to the hood of the car and sat next to her. There, they watched Bert, Reiner, and Mikasa light fireworks in the vacant lot from a distance eerily similar to that between a movie screen and the second row seats in the theater. It was a clear night and the stars were clouded by nothing but the smoke billowing from Annie’s mouth.


	3. september's lonely child

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Some Levi/Eren starts happening in this chapter <3  
> (Also, I hope you guys spot the ShinigamiEater reference.)

 

 

 

 

 

_i. Mikasa_

It was still dark when Mikasa woke up to the sound of a car backing out of the driveway. She stayed under the covers for a few minutes, listening to the white noise of her own breathing against the silence in the house.

When she got out of bed and walked down the stairs to the kitchen, she found Eren sound asleep, sprawled out on the couch. She draped a blanket over him, carefully tucking him in.

Grisha had left a note by the sink. She read it quickly—he left different versions of the same message every time. He wouldn’t be coming home until late that night, as usual.

He could have just texted, she thought sourly.

Mikasa stood in the kitchen, her bare feet slowly growing numb against the cold tile as she watched the sun rise through the window, the hazy pale-gold light creeping a little further into the room with each passing minute. It was the anniversary of the day she had been adopted by the Jaegers. She watched the sky and listened to the early morning noises as she tried not to think.

Hanji was right about the sunsets, Mikasa mused, but the sunrises were a little watery and pale.

She heard Eren stir in his room, then the rough patter of his feet heading along the corridor, down the stairs, and into the kitchen, yawning hugely as he bumped into the refrigerator.

“Mikasa?” he said, voice blurry with sleep. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. “What time is it?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Dad left you a note.”

Eren’s face fell.

“Oh,” he said. “He was here? When did he leave?”

Mikasa felt a sudden stab of resentment at her adoptive father, who never had to see Eren’s disappointment.

“Maybe half an hour ago,” she said. “He left money. Let’s get waffles.”

Eren nodded and plopped down on one of the chairs by the kitchen table. His eyes soft and groggy and his shoulders folded in towards his chest, he looked like a child again. Mikasa studied his face fondly.

She crumpled the note in her hand and pocketed the cash Grisha had left with it.

“Hurry up,” she said. “I’m hungry.”

* * *

The cafe had been closed for about a week. They went to a diner on the other side of town instead.

“I wonder where Levi and Hanji are,” Eren said, stabbing at his pancakes absently. It was a chilly morning, but Eren had insisted on sitting outside, on the patio in the back of the building. Sometimes Mikasa was still startled by his taste for scenery.

She watched the steam from his coffee billow from the cup. He grinned and used his finger to stir the steam to resemble wispy little cirrus clouds.

“Probably on vacation,” Mikasa said.

“Yeah,” he said. “But where? It would be nice to go somewhere for once. Maybe we could take a road trip this winter.”

He looked up at her, looking so hopeful she didn’t have the heart to remind him that they couldn’t afford to take a long trip, not with the majority of Grisha’s salary continually mysteriously disappearing.

“Okay,” she said. “Where do you want to go?”

Eren chewed thoughtfully.

“Anywhere,” he said. “We haven’t been to the beach yet.”

“Okay,” she agreed. “We can do that.”

Eren fiddled with his coffee cup.

“I hope they come back soon,” he said. “They’ve been helping me with my homework and stuff.”

“That’s where you’ve been?” Since the beginning of the school year Eren had been disappearing after school and coming home late in the evening. Then again, so had she.

“Yeah,” he said. “I thought I told you.”

Mikasa scoured her memory and decided, no, he definitely had not.

“Where have you been?” Eren asked.

“Around,” she said. No matter how she thought of it, she couldn’t think of a way to tell him about Reiner without embarrassing herself. “Armin’s been spending a lot of time with Annie and her friends. I keep him out of trouble.”

“Jean told me he caught you making out with Reiner,” Eren said accusingly. He narrowed his eyes at her. “Is that true?”

“Um,” she said.

“Oh, God,” he said.

“Yes,” she said after a long pause.

Eren groaned loudly.

“I didn’t know you liked him,” Eren said. “I thought Jean was trying to piss me off. I already fought him over it.”

“Did you win?”

“Yeah, of course I did,” he said. He squirmed a little in his seat.

“Your mouth said ‘yes’ but your eyes are saying ‘no’,” Mikasa said.

Eren scowled at her over the rim of his coffee cup.

“I won,” he said. “That’s a fact.”

“Okay,” she said. “I believe you.” Eren made a face at her.

“Is Reiner the big blond?” he asked

“Yeah.”

Eren poked at his pancakes thoughtfully.

“Isn’t he kind of,” he said. “Um. He wears Crocs.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I know.”

She didn’t actually like him that much—he was there, and he was interested, and even though she was pretty sure he was more in love with Bertholdt than he was with her, she thought it was at least an interesting experience. She wasn’t sure how much she liked cuddling, or making out with him in his room, where they had to shove all of his dirty socks off the bed to make room for their bodies. But she liked staying out in parking lots to make Diet Coke and Mentos volcanos with him and Bert and playing football in the park; she liked Reiner’s big laugh and goofy sense of humor.

Above all, though, she liked that it gave her the chance to detach from Eren. After this year, they would be going to college, and even if they went to the same school, they would be separated into different dorms.

Years ago, when they were children, she needed him fiercely, and later, when his mother was dying, she convinced herself that he needed her just as much. Now she knew that she and Eren were different―she needed people to ground her, but he had a sense of purpose independent of anyone else.

She couldn’t spend her entire life watching out for Eren, bailing him out of situations he needed to learn to deal with himself.

Mikasa stared into her coffee. In her peripheral vision, she could see Eren stuffing his face full of pancake, framed against the pretty flowering trellises placed against the back of the diner. Eren caught her eye and pointed excitedly at a small gang of squirrels slowly closing in on their table. He eagerly threw a pancake at them.

My brother, she thought affectionately.

Still, it was time to change.

 

* * *

 

 

 

_ii. Hanji_

Even a little north of Southern California, autumn set in the way it was supposed to, the vibrant summer greens softening to gold and red and tan, the air nice and brisk and carrying the faint, sweet scent of organic matter settling down for the cold. Sleep, Hanji liked to think, not death.

They were driving along the coast, through the mountain passes. Hanji usually traveled alone, but she liked having Levi with her more than she expected to. She liked to look at him, framed against the mountains and the ocean—it reminded her of the permanence of nature.

Millions of years ago, Levi’s ancestors were swimming around hydrothermal vents in the same ocean that they had waded in at dawn. When she had mentioned that to Levi that morning, though, he had grimaced. He didn’t like to think about time like that.

As gamely as he had gone along with her, she could tell he wasn’t happy. Last night, when they had checked into the motel off the freeway, she could see in the set of his mouth that he was tired, that his skin was probably crawling from the bored, knowing look the receptionist had given them when they had asked for a room with a single bed-that he simply didn’t get the same joy from roaming that she did.

At the moment, he was kneeling on the bed in their room, straightening the pictures hung above it.

Hanji watched him from her seat at the cheap little table next to the window, where the early morning light was weakly illuminating the dirty greyish tinge of the carpet and walls. She eyed the curve of his ass fondly.

“You’re fighting a losing battle,” she said. “You know someone’s just going to come along and fuck them up again.”

“I want them to look nice for me, while I’m here,” he grumbled, flipping his hair out of his eyes.

She laughed.

Levi had issues with history, she thought. While she saw herself relative to time in a broad sense, could detach and see herself as a tiny point in time and space, Levi focused on the present with a single-minded intensity. They had different ways of coping, she supposed.

“Do you want to go home?” she asked.

Levi stilled.

“Why?” he asked cautiously.

“Just wondering,” she said. “We could get back to the café. I know you miss those kids. The one with the pretty eyes, especially.” Levi made a face at that, but Hanji knew better. She knew who he liked before he did, usually.

He sat back on the bed, stretching against the headboard.

“What about you?” he asked. “You know I’m here for you.”

She did, and she wished he would stop doing things for her that she’d never asked for.

“I think you should go home if you want to,” she said.

He looked up at her, his face hard.

“Don’t be mad,” she said. “Look, I know you don't like driving me around, or listening to Stevie Nicks. You hate Stevie Nicks.”

“I do not.”

“You hate hotels,” she said. “I can tell. You keep trying to clean things up. Levi, all the Clorox wipes in the world won't wipe off traces of _other people;_  they were here first and they’ll keep coming after we’re gone. I know it makes you feel gross, but it’s true.”

Levi exhaled loudly through his nose.

“Fuck,” he said. “Hanji. I’m not here because I thought it would make you happy, I’m here because I’m tired of waiting around for you at home.” There was a new edge of venom in his voice. “Why did you think I asked to come with you?”

She didn’t know. At the time, it had startled her so badly she had agreed immediately. Levi never asked for anything that wasn’t offered to him.

She said, “I thought you wanted to travel.”

“I don’t want to fight here,” he said. He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. For some reason even she couldn't understand, seeing that small, familiar habit pissed Hanji off.

Hanji stood up.

“If you wanted me to stay, you should have asked,” Hanji said. “I might not have done it, but at least I’d know what you wanted from me.”

“Why would I ask for that?” Levi asked. “I want you to do what you want. I thought this would be better.”

“Then maybe you should stop making decisions for me,” Hanji snapped.

“What decision did I fucking make?” Levi said. His voice was quiet and even. “I asked you if you’d like for me to come with you.”

“You made the decision to sacrifice yourself,” she said. “You always do that, you always make it so you’re the one who’s giving something up. Why don't you just stop throwing yourself under the bus?”

Levi shut his eyes.

“I need some space,” Hanji said.

“Are you breaking up with me,” Levi said flatly. He probably meant for it to sound like a joke.

“No,” she said, humoring him. “But I need this. And you need to figure out your own life. You’re a mess.”

They let the silence pool in the room. Levi lay still on the bed. He looked best in the shadows, Hanji thought, he had the kind of sharp features that threw light in just the right way.

He stood up abruptly.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m going to take a train home now. Call me before you get to my apartment next time.”

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_iv. Eren_

Late in the afternoon, Mikasa had left the house to go on a date with Reiner. Eren had glowered at him as he pulled up to the driveway in a shiny red pickup truck, trying to look intimidating. Reiner had waved brightly as he left the driveway, narrowly missing the neighbor’s mailbox as he went. Eren cringed just thinking about it.

After they had left, he had briefly considered taking a bus to the hospital to visit his father. He stayed at home instead.

Eren hated hospitals. He hated the smell, the helplessness and fear in the atmosphere. He hated looking at the people in the waiting rooms.

At home, he dug through the cabinets for Cheeto Puffs and sat in his room for a while, looking at the stray cat that always came to stare at him through the window.

“What do you want?” he said.

The cat blinked and meowed.

“Me too,” Eren said.

“Hey, asshole!”

Shit, Eren thought. That wasn't the cat.

“Answer your phone!”

Eren lay back on his bed and considered taking a nap.

“Eren,” the person outside yelled. "Hey, shithead!"

At that, Eren quickly sat up and stuck his head out the window.

Levi was standing in the middle of the street with a brown paper bag in his hand. Eren stared. Levi waved at him.

“How do you know where I live?” Eren shouted.

“Mikasa told me,” he screamed back.

“What are you doing here?” His voice cracked on the last word. Eren blushed furiously.

“Come out,” Levi shouted.

Eren grabbed his phone and a jacket and ran down the stairs.

It was starting to get really dark. Levi was standing just outside of the pool of light under the streetlamp. Up close, he looked even worse than he had from the window. He was wearing only a black t-shirt over jeans and canvas sneakers. His face was flushed, either from the cold or from the alcohol in the bag.

“Do you want this?” Eren asked, holding the jacket out towards him.

Levi shook his head.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“You’re kind of red,” Eren said.

“It’s called Asian glow,” Levi said. “I’m half Korean.” He sounded a lot less drunk when he wasn’t screaming at Eren from the street. He swept his hair back from his forehead, pressing the palm of his hand to his face. “Can you drive?”

“Not legally,” Eren said.

Levi squinted at him.

“You look old enough,” Levi said. “Get in the car.”

Eren opened the door to the passenger’s seat.

“Not there, idiot. You have to drive,” Levi said. “I’m too fucking drunk.”

“Why?” Eren said. “We’d be breaking the law either way.”

“What’s more likely to get us killed?” Levi snapped.

Eren shrugged and got in the car. 

* * *

The drive was uncomfortably quiet. Every once in a while Levi would clear his throat as if he were about to speak but didn’t say a word.

“Where am I supposed to go?” Eren eventually asked, breaking the tense silence.

“The lot,” Levi said tersely. “Behind the café.”

“Where were you?”

“Away,” he said. After a pause he added, “I just got back home like, half an hour ago.”

“Oh,” Eren said. “Why’d you come here?”

“Because I have no friends, jackass,” Levi snapped.

Lit by the red tail lights of the cars ahead of them, Levi’s already flushed face made him look like an extremely surly demon.

“What about Hanji?” he asked.

“She doesn’t count,” Levi said. “Now shut the fuck up.” His face darkened briefly before settling back into his usual expression.

Suddenly, Eren felt intensely uncomfortable.

“Oh my God,” Eren said. “What’s going on?”

“Eyes on the road,” Levi said.

“What are we going to do at the lot?” Eren asked. “Are we going to vandalize something? This is so illegal. I can’t drive a drunk hobbit in a bad mood to a vacant lot.” His voice was slowly climbing in volume.

“I’m going to fucking kill you,” Levi said. “Also, of course not, you moron, the lot is right behind my café.”

“Right,” Eren said. “Sorry.” He took a deep breath.

Levi glowered.

“I’m in a shitty mood, okay?” Levi said. “I don’t feel like being alone and I _really_ don’t feel like going home. So you can drop me off there and take the car back to your house if you want but I honestly dragged you here just to hang out.” He exhaled in a huff. “Shit,” he said. “I really didn’t think this through.”

Eren was quiet for a while. Levi stared out the window, away from Eren.

“Are you okay?” Eren finally asked. “You sound kinda sad.”

Levi rubbed his eyes.

“Yeah,” he said. Eren wasn’t sure which question he was answering.

Eren parked the car on the sparse, spiky grass in the lot.

“Are we getting out?” Eren asked.

“Maybe later,” Levi said. During the ride, he hadn’t let go of the bottle, but for the moment he placed it in the cupholder.

“Alright,” Eren said. He leaned back in the seat and stared up at the sky through the windshield. Levi reclined his seat all the way down and draped an arm over his eyes.

“Wow. You must be really lonely if you want to hang out with me,” Eren said.

Levi screwed up his face.

“You’re the most tactless person I’ve ever met,” he said. “Fine. Yes. You’re right.” He twisted away from Eren, turning his body toward the door.

“Are you okay?”

Levi didn’t answer for a while. Eren tried not to look at him―it was too unsettling. Every time Eren had seen him he had seemed immaculately put together, but right now he looked like a wreck. His shirt was oddly crumpled, like he had slept in it, and his hair was greasy and swept messily back from his face against its natural part.

“Well,” Levi eventually said. “I got in a fight with Hanji.”

“Oh.”

“But it’s more like...” Levi gestured in little circular motions with one hand. “It’s like. Shit.” He let his hand droop back over his face. “I’m just trying to figure some stuff out. Have you ever felt like you were being squeezed to death?”

Eren tried to wrap his head around the strange analogy.

“Uh," he said. "No. What kind of question—”

Levi suddenly turned to face Eren and grabbed Eren’s wrist. Eren jerked back on reflex, but Levi’s hand quickly tightened around him, trapping him.

“It’s like this,” he said. His hand clamped down, so tight Eren thought he could feel his bones grinding together. Eren yelped in pain, and Levi let go so abruptly that for a second, Eren didn’t even process that he had been released.

“What the fuck,” he gasped. “What the fuck. I’m out.” Eren fumbled for the door handle.

“Imagine that,” Levi said. “But it’s your life. It starts like a little squeeze, and it keeps getting tighter until you can’t fucking get out. Then, when you think you can’t take any more, it stops, and then it starts to hurt.” Levi paused to take a long drink. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I feel like I'm living in a fucking pressure cooker."

“Okay,” Eren said, still reeling a little from the shock.

“I bet your arm fucking aches,” Levi said. "Sorry about that."

It did. Eren’s wrist pulsed with pain.

What the fuck, he thought. The cramped space inside the car felt like it was shrinking, and Eren had a brief, vivid mental image of being crushed by the ceiling. He struggled to keep his breathing even as Levi slumped back into his original position.

“Is that supposed to be part of the analogy?” he asked.

“Maybe,” Levi mumbled into his arm. “Why don’t you figure it out."

“So you're trying to say,” Eren said, “that it’s not just Hanji that’s making you feel like shit?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Nice job, boy fuckin' detective Encyclopedia Brown.”

"Well then what is it?"

Levi twisted his mouth into a grimace.

"Forget it," he said. "If you fucking just—drive to the nearest CVS or something—I'll get you an ice pack to put on your wrist." He scowled.

"It's fine," Eren said. "If I get caught driving I'm going to get fined."

There was a long silence.

Levi really looked like shit. Eren crossed his arms over his chest and looked out at the sky through the windshield. He felt suddenly homesick; not for the house a few blocks away, but for his childhood home, where he had lived with his mother. There was nothing worse, he thought sullenly, than hanging out with a drunk who's not having a good time.

“Hey,” he said, groping for something to talk about. “What did you want to be when you were a kid?”

Levi didn’t say anything for a while, but Eren could hear him breathing.

“Where did that come from?" Levi asked. "I didn’t want to be anything. I didn’t live with that kind of family.”

Eren hummed under his breath.

When he was a kid, he had wanted to be an astronaut. He had been trying to convince his mother to send him to space camp when Mikasa came to live with them, after her parents died in a fire. 

For a while, she wouldn't talk. For weeks Eren would sit with her and build cities out of wooden blocks, and she would just silently watch. She started talking again eventually, but never about her family. Once she had punched him for trying to look into her locket, where she kept a picture of her parents. Something in Levi's face reminded him of her.

“When my mom died,” he said, “Mikasa listened to me talk for like a week. I was a really angry kid. I didn’t stop yelling and crying until I didn’t have anything to say anymore.”

“Hm.”

“So if it makes you feel better,” Eren said, “you can talk about your problems, I guess. I can listen.”

“I don’t talk about things,” Levi said. “I try to let them go.”

“Oh,” Eren said.

"Fuck," Levi said. "Um. I was in the army for a while.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” he said. “But I got discharged after a couple of years. Before DADT was repealed.”

Eren furrowed his eyebrows.

“Uh,” he said. “What’s that?”

“Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” Levi said. “I got discharged for being fucking gay.” Even in the dark, Eren could tell that Levi was flushing. His hand was clenched tightly around the armrest; Eren looked at it, fascinated by the shadows cast by its bones and tendons.

“Oh,” Eren said.

Levi said in a carefully measured tone, “Right after I came home, my troop went into battle. My best friend died and Hanji was discharged for an injury. They thought she was going to die too.” Levi bit his lip. "So it's kind of fucking ironic, isn't it. Homosexuality saves lives."

“I’m sorry,” Eren said. He tried to imagine Levi as a soldier. He had a hard time picturing snide, rude Levi, who sprawled loosely in chairs and constantly told crass shit jokes, in a uniform, standing at attention.

“Mm.”

“So, you’re like, bisexual?” Eren asked.

Levi turned to him with a murderous glint in his eye.

“Yes,” he said. "Are you about to get all straight, white cis on me right now? Tell me you're not."

“No,” Eren said quickly. “I think. I just didn’t want to ask about anything else.”

“Oh, so this one knows what 'cis' means,” Levi said. "Praise the Lord."

“I know what it means,” Eren said. “Armin—”

Shit, he thought.

"Armin told me," he finished weakly.

“Uh-huh,” Levi said.

“What time is it?”

Levi fumbled in his pockets for his phone. Once he found it, he squinted against the glow of the screen.

“Almost 9,” he said. “Do you need to get home?”

“No,” Eren said. His father would be home soon, and for once, he didn’t want to see him.

“Do you want to stay here?” Levi asked.

“Okay,” Eren said. He looked at the tense set of Levi’s broad shoulders and quickly looked away.

Guilt tugged at his conscience; Levi was drunk and lonely and though he used to clam up as soon as anything personal came into the conversation, he had just told Eren more about himself than Eren had ever expected to learn. He wondered if he was taking advantage of Levi in some way.

“Do you miss being a soldier?” he asked.

Levi shrugged.

“I thought that that was going to be my life,” he said. “When you’re set on something like that, it’s hard to not miss it, no matter how bad it really was.”

Eren thought about that.

“Put on some music,” Levi said. “There’s some CDs in the glove compartment.”

Eren fumbled through the CDs, uncomfortably aware of how close his hand was to Levi’s crotch, and selected one at random. They listened in silence to one song, then two. The atmosphere in the car was strangely thick, and Eren could feel his heart pounding in his chest.

Levi was pretty. Eren let himself look at his serene face out of the corner of his eye, at the patches of pink still dappling his cheeks and neck, and felt himself flush.

“What is this band?” he asked.

“Alt-J,” Levi said. “Skip to track 7.”

Levi turned the volume up until Eren could feel the bass rumbling through his body. He closed his eyes and laid back in his seat, his hands folded over his chest.

Eren looked at him and swallowed against his dry throat before reaching over the divide between their seats and groping for Levi’s hand. Levi’s eyes darted to his face and just as quickly moved back to the window. He silently interlaced his fingers with Eren’s. His palms were calloused and his fingers were rough and bony.

Eren squeezed Levi’s hand, nervously waiting for him to pull away. He could hear the rhythmic thud of his own pulse in his ears. Levi hummed quietly along with the music and tightened his grip in response. He rubbed his thumb in little circles on the back of Eren's hand.

They sat in the car together, listening through Levi’s CDs until the evening noises had died into the deep hush of late night, and Eren fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello <3 I was hoping to update a lot sooner, but things happened. Stuff. Namely, the first week of my senior year in high school, which just started this Monday (I'm really excited).  
> I wanted to thank all of you guys that commented and/or left kudos! You're all so nice c:  
> On the off chance that you wanna be friends and talk or something you can drop me an ask at skin-on-bones.tumblr.com and I will follow you <3 Bye!


	4. open season

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is when most of the drama that fuels the rest of the story starts.  
> While I was writing it, I kept stopping to reread and re-evaluate whether some of the scenes were necessary and whether the story was playing out the way it absolutely had to; I'm sure there's a better way to write the story I want to tell, but in the end, this is the best I can do with my limited skill/talent ^^
> 
> Please read the notes at the end of the chapter!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been almost a year since I last updated and it's taken a while to get used to these characters again but I hope you like this chapter!  
> After reading through everything for the first time in months, I've changed the trajectory of the story a bit and edited some of the past chapters... I hope this story is better now than it was when I first started it ^^ Thanks to everyone who gave kudos/bookmarked/commented!
> 
> Here's a soundtrack to go with the fic for anyone interested:  
> http://8tracks.com/skinonbones/dissolve-me

 

_i. Levi_

Eren looked bleary-eyed and sulky in the passenger’s seat as Levi started the car.

That morning he had woken up freezing cold in his car, holding a teenager’s hand. His mouth felt fuzzy, he had a headache, and he had just peed in a bush.

“I was drunk,” he said, not looking at Eren, “but you—you have no excuse. Why the fuck did you think it was a good idea to spend the night here?”

Eren yawned loudly.

“It just kind of happened, okay?” Eren mumbled. “Why are you so loud?”

“Listen, brat,” Levi said. “I’m the one with a hangover. You don’t get to complain about my volume.”

“It’s not  _my_  fault you have a hangover,” Eren said. “Can we get pancakes?”

“Fuck no,” Levi said. “You’re going home.”

Eren made a face and looked out the window. His hair was sticking up in messy clumps—for a second, Levi couldn’t help but resent that. How dare Eren look even shittier than Levi felt.

“Call Mikasa and tell her I’m taking you home right now,” Levi said. “God, she’s going to kill me.”

“Mikasa would kick your ass in a fight,” Eren said.

“I fucking know,” Levi said. “Hurry up so it doesn’t happen.”

His phone started ringing, vibrating against the cupholder.

“Shit, that might be her,” he said. “Pick up for me.”

Levi swerved wildly into a McDonalds drive-thru.

“Hello?” Eren said.

“Can you put it on speaker?” Levi asked.

It was six in the morning and a line had already formed. Levi hated lines. He tapped his fingers impatiently.

“Hello?” Eren said again.

“Hm,” Hanji said over the phone. “Who is this?”

Levi sat bolt upright.

“Hanji—”

“Oh, there you are,” she said. “Hey, have you been fucking someone on the side?”

“No, course not, What the fuck—”

“Oh, hi,” Eren said. “It’s Eren.”

Hanji gasped loudly.

“You’ve been fucking a  _teenager_ ,” Hanji said.

“Believe me,” Levi said, “If I were fucking a teenager, it wouldn’t be  _this_  one.”

“Asshole,” Eren grumbled.

“Why are you calling?” Levi asked. “Did something happen?”

There was a long pause.

“Nothing,” Hanji said eventually. “I just felt like it.”

Levi glanced at Eren.

“I’m about to drop this kid off,” he said.

“Fine,” Hanji said. “I’ll call you later. In an hour. Have fun.”

She hung up.

Levi sat still, feeling his heart slowly sink.

“Hey,” Eren said. “I think we’re supposed to move.”

Levi let Eren order, his thoughts running in circles.

Hanji never just felt like talking; he couldn’t remember the last time she had called him without an emergency. He couldn’t tell what he felt worse about—the possibility that she  _did_  have an emergency that she couldn’t talk about with Eren present, or the fact that up to this point, Hanji had never called just because she missed him.

“I’ll trade my McMuffin for your hash brown,” Eren said.

“Take it,” Levi said, and stepped on the gas.

 

* * *

 

 

_ii. Eren_

When Levi pulled into his driveway, Eren told him to wait, he would go in and get money for breakfast.

“Forget it,” Levi said, and he drove away with a thunderous look on his face before Eren could protest. Now Eren was standing in front of his front door, steeling himself to face his sister. He opened the door slowly and wiped his feet before he came in.

Mikasa was sitting on the couch, huddled up in a blanket.

“Where were you?” she asked. “I called you so many times.”

Eren’s stomach sank—she didn’t even sound mad.

“I was in the vacant lot,” he said. “With Levi. Sorry, my phone must have been on silent.”

“Okay,” she said. “Are you hungry? I made breakfast.”

“I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly. “I—Levi bought food.”

“Right,” Mikasa said. Her eyes were guarded. “You should call Dad. He left just about an hour ago.”

“Really?” Eren said. “Was he worried?”

Mikasa looked away.

“Not exactly,” she said.

Of course, Eren thought.

“You should go to sleep,” he said. “Were you up all night?”

“Yeah,” she said.

Eren watched her guiltily as she made her way up the stairs. As if she could feel his gaze on her, Mikasa turned before she took the last step and looked at him with soft eyes.

“Hey,” she said. “Call next time, okay?”

Eren nodded.

 

* * *

 

 

_iii. Levi_

Levi stared at the ceiling, waiting for his phone to ring.

Since coming home, he had cleaned the floor, re-alphabetized his CDs, done one hundred push-ups, and taken a long, hot shower. Then he stalked around his apartment until he concluded that there was truly nothing else to do.

His back ached like hell from sleeping in the car—when had he gotten so fucking old?

He remembered being Eren's age, though he kind of wished he couldn't. He had been a skinny, furtive teenager, sullen and always ready for a fight. By the time he was eighteen, he had enlisted in the army and a couple of months later, he was in basic training.

Eren, though, was boyish and earnest. He was impulsive, eager, and his eyes were painfully honest; Levi felt like he had never been that young.

He could still feel Eren's hand wrapped around his.

Levi sat up abruptly and shook the thought from his mind.

"Oh, fuck no," he said.

 

* * *

 

 

_iv. Armin_

Armin walked outside near sundown to get the mail and found Eren asleep on his front lawn, clutching a bottle of Muscle Milk to his chest.

He sighed deeply before he crouched and gently shook his friend.

“Wake up, dickhead,” he said.

Eren groaned and stirred, crumpling the dark grass underneath him.

“I can’t feel my toes, dude,” he mumbled.

“Jesus,” Armin said. “Um. It’s okay. You don’t need your toes to walk.”

He had his doubts about the truth of that statement, but he was willing to bet that Eren wouldn’t.

“Oh.”

Eren slowly hauled himself up. He squinted a little against the dimming sunlight, looking sleepy and disturbingly grimy. Eren almost always had something smeared on him, Armin realized; he seemed to attract dirt like a possum. The only other person who was ever anywhere near as chronically sloppy-looking as Eren was Christa’s girlfriend, Ymir, who probably did it on purpose.

“You smell like ass,” Eren said.

“Reiner snorted sauerkraut and beer on me yesterday,” Armin said.

“Is that the guy Mikasa’s going out with?” Eren asked, brushing dead grass off of the seat of his pants. Armin helped him swat leaves out of his hair. “Ew. I thought she had better taste.”

“Since when?” Armin asked. “Remember when she had a crush on Hulk Hogan?”

“Yeah,” Eren said. “What’s wrong with that?”

Armin made a face.

“Let’s go inside,” he said. “Where is Mikasa, anyway?”

“I think she's asleep,” Eren said. “She might be shopping for homecoming dresses with Christa. And Christa's super old girlfriend.”

“Ymir,” Armin said.

“Yeah, her,” he said. “And Sasha. Hey, wanna see something gross?”

“Sure.”

 

Armin watched, transfixed, as Eren smacked the bottom of the upturned Muscle Milk over the sink.

“Why isn’t anything coming out?” Armin asked.

“Just wait for it,” Eren said. He shook the bottle furiously.

Suddenly, a gelatinous brown blob flew out of the bottle and into the sink with a loud, wet smacking sound. It jiggled a little before settling back into the shape of the bottle. Eren grinned proudly.

“Sick, right?”

“How,” Armin said.

“I found it in Connie’s locker,” Eren said. “Turns out if you leave Muscle Milk in one place for too long it turns into this. It took a while to shove it back into the bottle.”

“That is so gross,” Armin said. “Oh my God.”

“Right?” Eren said placidly. He poked at the blob. It wobbled obscenely.

“What are you going to do with that?” Armin asked.

“I don’t know,” Eren said. “Maybe if we microwave it it’ll turn back into a drink.”

“I can think of about a million ways that could go wrong.”

“Yeah,” Eren said. “Would you be mad if we used your microwave?”

Armin bit his lip.

“I guess not,” he said. "But I'm supposed to meet Annie at the park in 15 minutes. Do you want to come with?"

Eren squinted and furrowed his eyebrows the way he always did when he was thinking hard about something.

"Yeah," he said after a pause. "Okay."

"Then we have to go now," Armin said. "Because Annie has the patience of a hand grenade with the pin pulled."

 “Oh,” Eren said. “That’s great. I could really use getting my ass handed to me right now.”

Armin shrugged on a loose cardigan and checked his pocket for his house keys and his phone.

“That’s funny,” he said, “considering how often you get your ass handed to you whether or not you want it.”

“Ha ha,” Eren said. “That’s hilarious.”

“What happened? Why the ass-handing?” Armin locked the door behind them as Eren walked on ahead.

Eren rubbed his wrist nervously.

“Well,” he said. “Hypothetically. What would you do if you were hanging out with a guy who has a girlfriend, and maybe anger issues, and then suddenly you started to kind of want to make out with him.”

Armin stopped in his tracks.

“What?”

“Hypothetically.”

“Do not,” Armin said, “fuck Levi.”

“I never said it was Levi.”

“You didn’t have to; how many other straight guys do we even know?”

“It could be Reiner,” Eren said defensively. “And Levi isn’t even straight."

“For fuck’s sake, you’ve never even talked to Reiner,” Armin said. “I  _know_  it’s not Reiner.”

Eren sulked.

They were rounding the corner to the park, and Armin’s palms were starting to get sweaty. He wiped them on his jeans.

“Do I look okay?” he asked.

Eren glanced at him.

“Yeah, you look hot,” Eren said. “Anyway, if your date goes badly, I’ll just eat the peanut butter cups in your pocket and pretend I’m having an allergic reaction,” he added.

“You’re the best.”

 

* * *

 

 

_v. Annie_

“You’ve done this before?” she asked.

Armin sat crosslegged across from her, biting the tip of his tongue as he carefully rolled a joint.

“Yeah,” his friend said. He was lying on his back, idly tearing up fistfuls of grass.

“In Texas,” Armin said, “there’s a lot of weed, as long as you can find the libertarians.”

He passed the joint to Annie, who lit it and took a long drag. She passed the joint to Armin, who handed it off to Eren.

“What,” Annie said. “All work and no play?”

Armin shook his head.

“Bad trip,” he said. "A couple of months ago. I'm getting myself ready."

Annie fell back onto the grass, lit gold-green by the setting sun the light of which filtered through oak leaves in thin rays so bright and golden she swept her fingers through one half-expecting to touch it.

This was nice, she thought, it was better, easier to be high with people except for Bert and Reiner, easier to talk and not think about the consequences. She had learned that at the first party Reiner had dragged her to, and she usually didn’t smoke except at parties, didn’t really care to get to know people if she didn’t have to, but somehow, Armin...

Eren and Armin were laughing in the grass.

Eren was kind of cute, she decided. He had shaggy, dark brown hair and big, bright turquoise eyes. He was lean and boyish, sinewy, with long legs and big hands and feet, like a puppy. He was absolutely not her type.

“Where’s the joint?” Armin asked.

“Here,” she said, passing it to him. It was almost burnt down to a stub. He took a quick drag and yelped when the flames reached his fingers.

Armin always sounded a bit breathless, Annie thought. She thought she knew why.

“Hey,” Eren said. “Can I have a peanut butter cup?”

Armin rolled another joint and handed it to Annie to light it.

“You,” she said. “Come here.”

Armin scooted closer, laid down next to her in the grass, where the gold of his hair mixed with the paler, ashy-blonde of hers. His eyes met hers while she slowly, deliberately took a toke. When she leaned down and kissed him, his lips parted easily, breathing in the smoke she exhaled.

 

* * *

 

 

_vi. Levi_

“Hey.”

Levi leaned his head out of the window, taking in the view. The sun had just set, and below his apartment, the roads were full with cars bearing people home from work. On the horizon, at the foothills of the mountains, lights from a distant city blinked to life like a bed of earthbound stars.

“Hey babe,” Hanji said, her voice tinny over the phone. “What did you do today?”

“Not Eren,” Levi said. “What about you?”

Hanji was silent.

“Hm,” she said. “Considering the distance, I didn’t exactly have a chance to do Eren either.”

“Jesus,” he said. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know.” Her voice was unexpectedly tender. Levi suddenly had a deep, looming feeling that something was very, very wrong.

“What?” he asked. “Did something happen?”

“No,” she said. “I’m in Oregon now. I just found a motel.” 

“Oh.”

“Levi,” she said. “I’m sorry I told you to go home.”

His mouth was dry.

“Don’t mention it,” he said.

“I miss you.”

“You do?”

“Wow, don’t sound so surprised,” she said. "Of course I do!" 

Levi couldn’t think of anything to say; this was terribly unexpected, and somehow, despite all of the times Levi had wished it would happen, unwelcome. When Hanji didn’t call, when she came and went, there was an unspoken promise that everything was normal and she’d always come back, as if she were going on a trip to the grocery store. Acknowledging her absence from Levi’s life was something she never did.

“How long are you staying?”

“Hmm.” She clicked her tongue thoughtfully. Levi could practically see her pushing her glasses up her nose. “Not long.”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” he said. “Stay safe.”

She laughed.

“Of course,” she said fondly. “I gotta go soon. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

Levi nodded, then realized she couldn’t see him.

“Okay.”

“I’ll see you soon,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “I love you.”

“Don’t sound so gloomy,” she said brightly. “Love you too, short stuff.”

Then she was gone.

Levi stared at his phone for a moment before he fumbled for his keys and left the apartment.

 

Eren was sitting on the front steps of the café. He didn’t look up until Levi was standing right in front of him.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Levi said. “We’re closed.”

“Yeah,” Eren said slowly. “I wanted to see you.”

Levi looked closely at his face. His eyes were bloodshot and he reeked of pot.

“Are you fucking high?”

“Not anymore,” Eren said. “Really.”

“You’re covered in chocolate.” Levi felt his temper running short. All he wanted was to be alone and here he was, dealing with a sloppy, smelly teenager.

“Listen,” Eren said. “How old are you?”

“Old as balls,” Levi snapped. “Get out of the way.”

Eren stood up. His face was suddenly much too close, his clear blue eyes fixed intently on Levi’s. Eren had soft, even features—a gently sloping nose, clear, tan skin, and full, pretty lips. Levi clenched his jaw and got ready to punch the lights out of him.

“Wait,” he said. “Really. I really want to know.”

“And I’m really not going to tell you.”

Eren suddenly leaned in. Before Levi could step back, Eren tripped over his own feet, fell forward, and planted a sloppy kiss somewhere to the side of Levi’s chin. Levi instinctively shoved him off, and Eren landed on his ass in front of the door.

“Wow,” Levi said.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” Eren said. “I don’t even like you that much. I just—”

“Go home,” Levi said.

Eren opened his mouth, his eyes wide and hurt.

“I really,” Levi said, “really don’t need this right now.”

He hauled Eren roughly to his feet and watched Eren walked away from the café.

 

* * *

 

 

_vii. Hanji_

He had green hair, and that’s what she liked about him.

He took off his shirt, and Hanji let her gaze travel across his torso—he was skinny and tall, with delicate, bird-like ribs.

“How old are you?” she asked.

He smiled.

“Legal,” he said, and then he kissed her. His lips were chapped and warm.

How easy it was, she thought, to be with someone without expectations. What a relief to kiss someone without knowing what his lips would taste like; to look into someone’s eyes and see nothing and not care.

“Oh, you’re not jailbait,” she murmured between kisses. “Where’s the fun now?”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I can still show you a good time.”

Levi had big, warm hands and broad shoulders corded with muscle. She knew his body even better than she knew her own—sometimes in the mornings, when they were brushing their teeth, she would catch their reflections in the mirror and recognize him before she could recognize herself.

This skinny boy was fumbling with the button of his jeans. His hands were shaking.

“Come here,” she said. He stumbled onto the bed with her. “Is this your first time hooking up with a stranger?”

“Maybe.” His voice cracked.

Hanji hummed thoughtfully as she unzipped his pants. He was already hard, and almost embarrassingly eager.

“I have to warn you,” she said. “I have a boyfriend.”

“Really?”

She squeezed his cock, and he let out a small gasp.

“Yeah,” she said. “His dick is a lot bigger than yours, actually.”

“Fuck off,” he said, sounding sulky, but his hips still strained forward into her hands.

She couldn’t believe she thought this would be fun. It was exciting at first, flirting at the bar after that painful phone call, coming back to her motel room with a boy who expected nothing from her but a quick fuck. Now, it even looked like he would be satisfied with a lukewarm handjob. But she couldn’t stop seeing Levi’s face, remote and hard the way it always got when he was too hurt to speak, Levi’s warm mouth, Levi’s stupid eyes whenever she tried to tell him that she had nothing she could give him.

She had never expected that it would be so hard to be loved when she felt too hollow to love back. Sometimes she would wake up in the morning in a strange bed and feel like she and the room were one sloppy whole, and she was just a consciousness floating around in an empty body.

The boy came with a groan, splattering her hand with semen.

“Hey, wow,” Hanji said. “That was quick.”

“Sorry,” he gasped.

“Why don’t you get going now?” she said. “I have to get on a flight soon.”

She watched him get dressed and sat alone in the dark until the sky brightened to a clear, light blue.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything is unfolding very slowly, but when I started this fic I had planned to write it as true to life as I could, so I included some very mundane interactions (e.g. the Muscle Milk scene). For the first hour or so before I posted I was very insecure about the pace, the atmosphere, dialogue, character interpretations, etc. I was especially nervous about Hanji's ending scene...but eventually I decided that this is the story that I wanted to write.  
> While it's fun writing the romance and the drama, Dissolve Me ended up being a bit of a self-indulgent memory book for me--many of the events and settings are based on my own experiences.  
> The goal when I started was to be able to look back at this story and think that I had captured some of the mood and tone of my real life (at least a little bit). I hope I succeeded in that, at least!
> 
> Muscle Milk does, in fact, turn into an awful gelatinous mess if you leave it in a locker for too long. Please learn from my mistakes.  
> (I realize I didn't have to write this very long, rambling, and excessively personal end note. Please accept my apology ^^)
> 
> Thank you for reading! Please comment/leave kudos if you like <3


	5. an ending, a beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi just can't catch a break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long gap between updates! I've been so busy with school, but I'll try to update more regularly.  
> This is an important chapter to me—I think it's pivotal to the story, and it will precipitate a large chunk of the series's plot. Please read the notes at the end of the chapter!

 

 

_i. Hanji_

Hanji dumped the last of her belongings on the cheap hotel carpet and studied the mess.

She had never been particularly sentimental, and she found that every day, the things she owned meant less and less to her. With travel, every item she carried weighed her down and made moving cumbersome. In the pile, she had too many shirts she didn’t need, a pair of jeans, a heavy jacket and a light one, a thin blanket, socks, briefs, and everything else, which Hanji gave surveyed with a cursory glance and labeled “etcetera.”

She dressed slowly, picking the closest clothes within grabbing distance, tied her hair in a ponytail, and then carefully, painstakingly draped around her neck her only possession with sentimental value—the scarf Levi had given her one Christmas when they were both children. Everything else she packed in a bag to drop off at the nearest Goodwill. She had a phone call to make.

When Levi finally picked up, his voice was still hoarse with sleep. She could almost see him sweeping his hair back from his face—one of his small habits, like pinching the bridge of his nose when he was annoyed.

"Hanji?" She could hear the rustle of the sheets over the phone. "What's wrong?"

"Listen, Levi,” she said.

"What?" He suddenly sounded very awake.

"You’re not going to like what I'm going to say,” she said.

He was very quiet. Hanji could hear only the soft in and out of his breathing for one, two, three beats.

"Okay," he said cautiously.

“I’m coming home,” she said. “If you still want me there. Levi, I fucked up.”

"What?" His voice was sharp. "Why wouldn't I want you to come home?"

She bit her tongue and waited for the words to settle in her mouth.

"I gave a teenager a handjob in a motel room last night."

The silence on Levi’s end of the line was nearly complete—for a moment, Hanji thought that he had hung up.

"Call me when you get to the airport," he finally said. His voice was very steady.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Don't—"

"Don't what?"

She could think of about a million things she didn't want, but not a single thing to say.

"Don't forget," she said. "We need to talk."

"Okay," Levi said.

Then he hung up.

Hanji sat on the bed for a moment longer, counting her breaths. She hadn't slept that night, or the night before, and her hands were shaking from sleep deprivation.

She missed the thrill of productive exhaustion, the singing in her veins when she missed night after night of sleep for a purpose. Somehow, it was different when she stayed up all night working, though that hadn’t happened in a while. Life was catching up to her, she guessed.

It had started with shattered test tubes, when her hands had first started to break out in tremors. Then, it was misplaced bacterial cultures and trial after trial of the simplest experiments ending with sloppy, wildly variable data. The nightmares came last, so vivid she would wake up with her throat choked up so tight she couldn't even scream, still seeing through the sight of the rifle she held trained on a man whom she would never meet.

After a while, it became too strange to her that she could go to school, have a job, live out her dreams—strange, even, that she could eat, sleep, and fuck in a safe, quiet suburb, when only a few years ago she had watched the ground slowly gulp down the blood from the mess brain and skull that had once been a child.

So she took a break from school. Levi helped her throw out almost everything she owned. She wrecked her moped—that was an accident, but good riddance. And then she packed whatever she had left and got on a plane.

The whole point had been to try to find herself. But now, after months of sleeping in motel rooms where the unfamiliarity soothed her like ice on a bruise, she was ready to admit it: the search was over. There was nothing to find.

 

* * *

 

 

_ii. Mikasa_

Eren had spent the entire week moping on the couch.

Since the morning he had come back from his night out with Levi, he had formed a new rhythm to his days.

On weekdays, he would sulk in silence on the way to school, snap at everyone who tried to talk to him, and stomp all the way to his room as soon as the final bell rang. Weekends, he would sleep in until noon, then slouch downstairs and roll around on the couch for the rest of the day, giving everyone who passed baleful looks.

It was a clear Sunday morning, and Armin had come over for breakfast and video games—a long-standing tradition that never failed to cheer Eren up. That day, however, he silently shoveled eggs into his mouth with a sort of resentful gusto.

Armin eyed Eren warily. He was already on his sixth plate of eggs.

"Holy shit, Eren," Armin said. "Have you eaten yet this month?"

Eren grunted.

"Oh, I get it," Armin said. "You're going for 'strong and silent.' I'll leave you to that, then."

"Don't worry," Mikasa said. "Eren's just being a little shit."

Eren swallowed with some effort.

"Can I eat?" he snapped.

"Well, apparently," Armin said. "I think you just ate Christmas."

"I don't get it," Eren said flatly.

"You wouldn't," Mikasa said, "Your digestive system is crushing your tiny Grinch heart."

Eren glared at her, then forked more eggs into his mouth.

"I brought Super Smash," Armin said, trying to cajole Eren into a better mood. Eren grunted and chewed, looking more and more sullen with every bite. By the time he finished his plate, he looked a little green.

"I'm going back to sleep," he grumbled.

Mikasa and Armin watched him trudge up the stairs to his room.

"Wow," Armin said. "What happened?"

"He's been like this since last Sunday," Mikasa said.

"Oh." Armin paused. "Shit."

Mikasa gave him a sharp look.

"Do you know something?"

"I might," he said. "But I think I'm not supposed to tell anyone."

Armin shrank a little under her stare.

"Alright, he has a crush on Levi," he said weakly.

"Levi?" Mikasa struggled to keep her voice down. "He's fucking thirty!"

"I know," Armin said. "Oh my God. Don't freak out."

"How long has this been going on?" she demanded.

"I think maybe a couple of weeks at most," Armin said. "Mikasa, don't freak out."

"I'm going to kill him," Mikasa said. "He’s so dead. Eren's not even legal yet."

"Whoa," Armin said. "Okay, first of all, who says that Levi would even want to get down with Eren?"

"They've been spending a _lot_ of time together," Mikasa said. "What if."

"Please don’t talk to him,” Armin said.

"I’m going to talk to him,” Mikasa said.

Armin chewed thoughtfully.

“Honestly,” Armin said. “I would be all for that, but Levi’s seemed really out of it recently.”

Mikasa scowled.

“I don’t care about Levi, I care about Eren,” she said.

“Same," Armin said. "All I’m trying to say is: Eren cares about him. So before you go, if you want to keep Eren happy, I think you should really think about what you’re going to say.”

Mikasa hummed noncommittally and began clearing the plates from the table. Armin joined her by the sink and started rinsing their dishes with soapy water. It was an unseasonably warm day, and the cold water ran through her fingers and sent a pleasant shiver down her spine. The light dripped a honey pattern on the wooden floorboards and made Armin's flyaway hair glow like molten gold.

“Don’t you have a date with Annie today?” Mikasa asked.

Armin smiled.

“Maybe,” he said. “Did she tell you?”

“Reiner told me,” Mikasa said. “You two are so secretive.”

“Yeah, well,” Armin said. “I don’t want people to talk about it at school. There’s still some people who think I’m a girl, and I’d rather keep rumors from spreading about Annie. For their sake, not hers. She does mixed martial arts.”

Mikasa only knew Annie vaguely. They had hung out together a few times, but always with other people, and neither of them were exactly talkative. Annie had shown no interest in Mikasa; the only person she seemed particularly interested in was Armin. Mikasa distrusted people who were hard to read, and Annie was as inscrutable as they came. But if Armin liked her, she was willing to give her a chance.

“Have fun,” Mikasa said. She put the last dish in the dish rack and wiped her hands dry. “Are you going to hang around here for a while? I have to go kick some ass.”

 

* * *

 

 

_iii. Levi_

Levi had decided to come to the café early to open up shop and at least pretend that he had been keeping regular hours.

Stepping out of his car, he squinted against the bright sunlight, and, looking up towards the café, found Mikasa leaning against the red doorway. She looked nothing like her brother, he thought, before remembering that she was adopted. Why, then, did she look so familiar?

Levi walked toward the building cautiously, eyeing Mikasa. Her arms were crossed over her tight ribbed wifebeater, which she wore tucked into high-waisted shorts with a green flannel shirt tied around her waist. The outfit reminded him of Hanji, he guessed, but it didn't explain the nagging feeling in his gut that he knew Mikasa from somewhere.

"If you're done staring," she said, "could you open the goddamn door?"

Levi looked up, annoyed, and Mikasa's gaze locked on his. A muscle twitched in her jaw.

"I could," he said curtly, "if you could step away from it."

Mikasa took her time; Levi hated to admit it, but her stare was burning a hole in his back. He held the door open for her, and she stalked in, then turned and glared at him.

“He’s _seventeen_!” she said.

“What the fuck,” Levi said. “Who are you talking about?”

Mikasa growled at him; Levi resisted the urge to flinch.

It was almost funny, Levi thought, how everything always seemed to fall to shit all at the same time. Levi was old friends with instability, and he knew that as a general rule as soon as one thing went truly badly, in no time you’d have a chain reaction on your hands.

“Aren’t you _thirty_?”

"What does that have to do with anything?" Levi pinched the bridge of his nose and sat down at the nearest table.

"It has to do with whether or not you can _fuck my brother_ , you asshole," she said.

“Okay,” Levi said. “If this is about Eren, I absolutely do _not_ want to fuck your shitty little brother.”

“Well, Strawberry Shortcake,” Mikasa said. “If you don’t want to date him, then maybe you should tell him that instead of stringing him along to do god-knows-what in the middle of the fucking night!”

Levi let that sink in.

“If Eren thinks that I have feelings for him,” Levi said, "He's wrong. Now get the fuck out of here.”

“Stay away from my brother’s asshole,” Mikasa said, backing away from the table. She cracked her knuckles menacingly. “Or I’ll drive a truck up yours.”

Jesus Christ, Levi thought. When Mikasa got vocal she really made it count.

Levi buried his head in his arms and groaned. He didn’t _dislike_ Eren, but the kid was shaping up to be more trouble than he had expected.

In the beginning, when he used to drop by the cafe for help on his math homework, he had actually been fairly pleasant company. But after last week, with the hand-holding and Eren’s sloppy kiss, Levi was tempted to cut Eren out of his life, if only to deliver the message that he was not interested, or even available.

If he had never met Hanji, if he were ten years younger, then maybe things would work the way Eren wanted. It was a strange thought, and deep in his heart, he almost wanted it. If he had had that life, everything could have been so _normal_. Eren was such a teenager, just being around him made Levi feel like he was stuck in some high school special.

But the thought left just as quickly as it had come. Levi was not the kind of person who wasted time on pointless speculation.

 

* * *

 

 

_iv. Armin_

When Armin stepped through the door to Eren’s bedroom, Eren turned his head on his pillow to give Armin a sulky glare.

“I heard that,” he said.

“Before you say anything,” Armin said. “Do you really think that Mikasa wouldn’t have found out one way or another?”

Eren rolled onto his stomach, burying his face in the pillow.

“No,” he said, his voice muffled. “But I don’t want Levi to hate me if Mikasa does anything too scary.”

“I think they’re pretty evenly matched when it comes to scariness.” Armin sat on the bed. “He’ll be fine. Just let her get it out of her system.”

“No, Mikasa’s way scarier,” Eren insisted.

That was true enough. Armin figured that Levi wasn't personally invested enough to really compete with Mikasa.

"When are you leaving for your date?" Eren asked.

"In a couple of hours," Armin said. "I'm picking Annie up from her judo class to get ramen."

“She takes judo classes?”

“Um,” Armin said. “No. She teaches them.”

“Holy shit,” Eren said. “Do you think she would teach me?”

“Are you going to fight Jean?” Armin narrowed his eyes. “Don’t do it.”

“I’m not going to fight him,” Eren said. “Probably. I just think it would be cool to learn how to fight."

"You should ask, then," Armin said. He wondered how Annie would react. In his mind, she was still a puzzle half-finished.

The day after she had kissed him in the park, Armin had waited outside of Reiner's house for hours before she opened the front door, too wracked by nerves to ring the doorbell. Armin remembered the gleam of surprise in her pale blue eyes behind her bangs when he had asked her out, the shy, almost hesitant way she had kissed him then.

"What's with that face?"

Armin started. Eren was eyeing him warily.

"What?"

"You're making this weird face," Eren said. "Like, this weird little grin. It's kind of creepy."

"Oh," Armin said. "I'm just. Uh."

"Anyway, are you guys official?" Eren picked at his nails.

"No," Armin said. "I think we're just dating, for now. Shit. What should I wear?"

"What's wrong with what you're wearing now?"

Armin looked down at himself. He was wearing stained white basketball shorts and Eren's old summer camp t-shirt.

"You're fucking kidding," he said.

 

* * *

 

_v. Hanji_

Levi was already at the terminal by the time the plane landed, waiting for her on a bench by the luggage. Hanji watched him from a distance.

He was slumped in his seat, eyes closed and chin nearly resting against his chest. Even so, he stuck out like a sore thumb in the brightness of the terminal. Levi’s natural pallor, combined with his penchant for black clothing, made him striking—the kind of person strangers would stop to look at. That day, he wore a black sweater and black jeans over tattered black Docs, and he had combed his hair back from his forehead with painstaking care, baring the stark lines of his face. He wasn’t a handsome man, but there was something about him that drew the eye.

Hanji walked towards him slowly, hoping the sound of her footsteps wouldn’t wake him.

Levi turned his head in her direction and opened his eyes.

“Is that all you packed?”

“Yeah,” she said. She bit her tongue before she could say something flippant; she didn’t want to set a mood.

Levi looked up at her with warmth hidden beneath his usual blank expression.

“It looks like you shed some luggage on the way,” he said dryly. “I could have sworn you had a suitcase when we left.”

“Yeah, well,” Hanji said. “Things happen, you know? First a couple of socks go missing, then a shirt, then suddenly a stranger is using your suitcase as a paddleboard in the hotel pool. It was time to say goodbye.”

Levi let out a snort of laughter. When he laughed, the corners of his mouth actually turned down, like a sort of amused grimace.

“C’mere,” he said gruffly. Hanji took a large step towards him—now, she stood between his legs, looming over him. Levi reached up, squat-standing a little to grab the back of her neck and pull her down so that their foreheads touched.

Hanji laughed and leaned forward obligingly, settling into a more comfortable position. His breath stirred the stray hairs near her face, made her stomach flutter in a way that made her wish they weren’t in such a public place. Maybe an empty bathroom stall would be better, she thought, though Levi would never agree to having sex in such an unsanitary environment.

“Did you miss me?” she asked.

Levi just pulled her closer, and Hanji followed the motion. His lips were soft and a little waxy—she licked the bottom one before drawing back.

It was like Hanji hadn’t told him just that morning that she had almost fucked a stranger. It was possible, she supposed, that Levi didn’t care, but it was more likely that he was really just pretending it hadn’t happened.

“Hey,” Hanji said. “I’m starving.”

“Eat my ass,” Levi mumbled against her neck.

“Okay, but after dinner,” Hanji said. “First we eat food, then I eat your ass, then maybe I’ll bring out the strap-on.” She waggled her eyebrows at him.

“You’re awful,” Levi said. He sat back in his seat and let Hanji straighten up. “What do you want to eat?”

“Everything,” Hanji said. “Oh, God. Potatoes. I would kill a man for a potato.”

 

 

Levi was a neat eater. He cut hamburgers into tiny, bite-sized chunks and speared the pieces with a fork. Hanji watched him slice into his sauceless cheeseburger and popped another fry into her mouth.

“You’re killing all of the joy,” she said. “Hamburgers are sloppy.”

“Well excuse the fuck out of me,” Levi said. “You eat like an animal.”

Hanji grinned and poured her strawberry milkshake on top of her burger patty. Then she covered the puddle with french fries and popped the bun on top.

“That’s disgusting,” Levi said, but there was no bite to it. Hanji had eaten like that since she was a kid.

“It’s delicious,” she said through a mouthful of food. “You won’t know until you try it! If you come a little closer, I can baby-bird it to you. Open up, babe.”

Levi kicked her under the table.

“Gross.”

Hanji folded her arms on the table and leaned forward—she never missed out on an opportunity to tease him.

“Where’s your spirit of adventure, pal?” she asked. “We must ‘boldly go where no man has gone before.’”

“Oh, my God,” Levi said. “Don’t go there.”

“‘ _Where no man has gone before_ ,’” Hanji continued relentlessly. “I _have_ to go there. I’m duty-bound to go there.”

Levi opened his mouth, then closed it again. He pulled a face instead and started to eat. Hanji watched him, her chin propped up on her hand, and wondered at the things people did to survive. All of the work the organs did to keep a body functioning.

“Levi.”

He looked up at her with a thoroughly fed-up expression on his face.

“We still need to talk,” she said. He dropped his gaze immediately and scowled.

“Okay, listen. I don’t fucking care if you gave a teenager a handjob,” he said. “I wouldn’t care if you gave a million teenagers handjobs.” Hanji stared at him blankly. Levi was a terrible escapist when it came to his feelings.

“We both know that’s not true,” she said.

“No, you _think_ it’s not true,” he said. “We’ve both fucked other people before, what’s the difference now?”

“We weren’t fucking each other at the time.” Hanji was starting to feel more annoyed than puzzled.

“So what,” Levi said flatly.

“You can’t make excuses for me just so you can feel better.”

“We were never exclusive.”

“We never _verbally agreed_ to be exclusive,” she corrected. “We _were_ exclusive.”

“Fucking Christ,” he said. “And? What are you trying to say?”

“We need to talk about our problems,” Hanji said. “We’re enablers, Levi. We let each other get away with too much shit.”

Levi looked around—the restaurant was crowded, and the music was loud enough so that no one would overhear their conversation if they kept their voices down.

“Okay,” he said. “Then talk.”

“How do you really feel?”

Levi exhaled loudly.

“Christ, Hanji,” he said. “I don’t like that you fucked someone else, but it happened, so there’s no use being angry about it. Look, there _are_ things that are unforgivable, and we’ve done all of them already. So what's the fucking point of getting worked up over a handjob?”

He raised his hand to push back his hair, then decided against it, his hand fluttering in the air like a pale moth.

"The point," she said, "of getting worked up over a handjob is that that's what _normal people_ do. We're not normal people, but if we keep up this 'I've done worse' attitude we'll be giving ourselves a way out of being held accountable for the all of the terrible things we do now."

Levi was shutting down; his face was carefully blank, his hands folded and still on the table top.

"Then scratch that," he said. "I forgive you. Is that enough?"

Hanji shook her head.

"Then what do you fucking want?"

"I think," she said, "we should take a break."

"Fuck," Levi said. "No. Why?"

"Levi, one person isn't supposed to take up so much real estate in someone's life," she said."We need each other too much. I can't need you just to be happy."

Levi shook his head violently.

"You don't need me," he said. "Why would you say that?"

"I love you," she said. She hoped her voice still sounded steady despite the lump in her throat. "I've loved you this whole time; I thought you knew."

Levi looked down, at his clenched hands. He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

"Get to the goddamn point," he said. His eyes gleamed. "Are you breaking up with me?"

"No. I don't know," she said. "I don't think I could. Look, Levi, I want you to be something to me, not everything."

"This is what we have," he said. "That's the only way it could be. You fucking held my hand when I got that stupid thumbtack piercing during junior high."

Levi had always been shit with words, but Hanji was good at translating. You're my family, he meant. You're my best friend. I’m in love with you. But, she thought, she was also the only person he had gotten to know who was even still alive.

Still, it wasn’t his feelings that scared her—it was hers. Sometimes she thought she could spend the rest of her life curled up in bed with him, far away from the rest of the world. It was cowardly, she thought, and despicable to cloak herself in someone else’s identity, to run from herself and take shelter in Levi instead. She had given up on so much already—so why not this, too?

"Two weeks," she said. "Just two weeks. I'll be around. We can be friends. We can start from scratch, Levi."

"Yeah?” Levi’s voice was rough—he was hurt. “And what happens at the end?"

"I don't know yet." Hanji bit her lip. "We'll find out."

The stretch of table between them seemed as wide as a river. For a split second, inexplicably, Hanji thought of Ondine’s Curse—both the myth and the disease. 

“I don’t like it,” Levi said. “But fine. If this is what you want, I'll do it.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that despite the events of the story, you don't judge Hanji too harshly. She's been a tough character to write sympathetically; she's a bit inscrutable and hard to relate to, especially considering her current state of mind in the story, but I think there's a happy ending on the horizon.
> 
> As always, thanks for reading! I really appreciate it (especially if you leave kudos/bookmark/comment). And you can hmu at commanderzoes.tumblr.com B)


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